


you look perfect tonight

by beijingaccent9



Category: EXO
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22032400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beijingaccent9/pseuds/beijingaccent9
Summary: Minseok is so much more. Sehun is the best.
Relationships: Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Oh Sehun
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	you look perfect tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fast-paced fic. Originally written back in 2017 lol

“There you go–” 

Junmyeon leads Sehun to their table being the good team captain he is. Chanyeol is chomping down his favorite chips, Jongin blasting shape of you on his phone, and Lu Han looking so annoyed as he stares intently at the man on the next table.

The younger is a little bit awkward– it hasn’t been that long since he transferred schools and joined the team. There isn’t enough time to get close to all, not enough to know why Lu Han spends everyday of his life badmouthing a man he thinks seems harmless, Minseok. 

“Why are you angry with him again?”

Lu Han snorts and shakes his head in disapproval. He doesn’t answer though, but the way he’s stabbing his favorite medium-rare meat means something big happened, and there’s no way his older teammate will easily forgive the seemingly innocent Minseok.

Junmyeon motions him to come closer, his eyebrows meet in his desperate attempt to satisfy Sehun’s curiosity. There’s something they’re keeping below the ground, to the core, and they obviously don’t want to speak of it anymore.

But, Sehun is young and he’s very drawn to the secrecy the team sworn to. 

“Let’s just say,” There is a small pause– he hears him breathe, a long and deep one, dragging a lungful of air into his lungs. “Lu Han likes to call him a traitor.”

Sehun looks behind Junmyeon, tilts his head to the side, and wonders why, why Minseok from the Music Department had earned the reputation of a traitor, a betrayer, a snitch. Then, he looks back to his teammate, still determined to uncover what happened before he came over. 

“I still don’t get it, Junmyeon-hyung.”

No one really does, to be honest.

  
-

  
He stands on the side of the hallway, looking at his watch from time to time. He’s standing there impatiently, as he waits for someone to walk by. And there he is, exactly at four o’clock, walking towards his direction with music sheets in his hand. 

“Minseok-ssi.” He calls out, his voice almost inaudible as he tries to be discreet, and less intimidating.

“Yes?”

Sehun scratches his nape in an attempt to start a conversation, and probably not make things awkward between them. “Hmm, I’m Oh Sehun from the soccer team. The new midfielder. I was wondering…”

Minseok has this grin on his face that the transferee can’t seem to explain, to understand. There’s this mysterious aura that envelopes the timid Minseok, as if he contained himself in a protective bubble that no one is allowed to enter. “Did you find out about me through Lu Han?”

The tall man nods nervously, licking his lips as his fingers with the keychain dangling on his bag. “They talk about you sometimes– you know, the older guys.”

“And?”

“I wonder why Lu Han-hyung looks at you as if he’s about to kill you.” Sehun asks innocently, so fucking clueless, and there’s a profound sadness on the smaller’s face that makes Sehun zip his lips. 

Minseok throws his sheets inside the locker and slams it hard and loud that makes the other boy jump from where he’s standing. He approaches him slowly, when Kyungsoo who just got out of the room near them steps right in, and grabs him by the arm, firm grab that squeezes him tight.

“Minseok,” He apprehends him, the sound of his voice is very authoritative, very protective. “He’s one of those soccer jerks.”

“Hey! I heard that!” 

“I used to be on the team, Sehun-ssi.” Minseok says as a lopsided smile forms on his lips. He carefully removes the tight grip on his arm and assures Kyungsoo that he’s okay, and that Sehun seems like a nice kid that won’t cause any harm. “I left the team early this year and I’m the midfielder you are filling in for.”

“Wait,” Sehun tries to go near, but the other small man blocks his way to Minseok, making him back off a little bit. 

“What exactly happened between you and the team?”

Kyungsoo glares at him and swats his hand away. “Nothing of your concern. Now, scram! Don’t go near Minseok again.”

-

  
His day is usually uneventful, it passes by like he’s on autopilot. Very much awake, but doesn’t pay attention to what’s happening around. Even music doesn’t help him anymore. Music doesn’t feel like music anymore, it doesn’t sound pleasant– 

“Hey, Minseok-ssi!” 

Minseok stops, his feet planted on the ground as he tries to familiarize himself with the man in front of him. He bows, out of courtesy, and proceeds walking again. He feels conscious though, when he realizes Sehun is still staring at him, as he follows from behind.

“Hey. I just really want to get to know you more.” Sehun tells him, and it makes him halt his movements, because out of all the people he met the past few months, he seems different. “I know you’re not what hyungs make you out to be. You seem nice.”

“And how did you know?”

The taller man smiles at him and shrugs his shoulder in a playful way. “You didn’t let the feral cat starve. That’s nice.” 

“You saw me?”

“Pretty much.” Sehun smiles again, and it feels so warm and fuzzy. “Now, is that small guy coming here to take you again? He scares me.”

For the first time, Minseok smiles again. It isn’t forced, it’s so beautiful that Sehun can’t seem to take his eyes off of him. Minseok should smile more often, that’s what he thinks. “No, he has voice lessons.”

“Good.” He breathes a sigh of relief, hands on his pocket as he goes closer to the smaller man. 

“What are you planning?”

“Probably take you out to my favorite bubble tea store and talk. And that’s if, you’re not busy.”

“Will we walk?” Minseok asks warily. “I get tired easily these days.”

“I’ll drive.”

  
Minseok doesn’t really talk much and Sehun pretty much understands that it isn’t easy to open up to him when he’s practically a stranger. It will take time to make him comfortable around his presence. And it’s okay to wait, until it’s Minseok who willingly lets everything out.

The cute man with feline-like eyes catches Sehun taking glances at him. It’s cute, though, how even with the huge height difference, he doesn’t feel intimidated. He doesn’t feel and sometimes it’s good to stop feeling things he hated.

“Kim Minseok, twenty-one.”

“Oh Sehun, twenty-one.”

“Was the midfielder.”

“Am the midfielder.”

“Phone?” He asks, and Sehun gives his phone to him, albeit so confused. He types his number in and name, and saves it so they’ll have a way to communicate. He knows Kyungsoo won’t approve of them meeting, so just in case, he gives him his number. “There you go, Sehun.”

“Friends?”

Minseok nods, and shows him the most beautiful smile he has ever seen. 

“Friends.”  
-

  
Baekhyun drapes his short arms around Sehun’s broad shoulder, and playfully blows air in his ears. It makes him giggle and all the older guys think it’s cute– the new youngest player in the team can actually be at par with Minseok, or not. Baekhyun settles beside him and asks.

“Did you really went out with Minseok the other day?”

There’s a worried look on his face, as he panics about the rest of the team finding it out. They shouldn’t know about it, shouldn’t know about him taking an interest on Minseok, the guy they’re so intent on isolating.

He tells Baekhyun to tone his voice down. “I can explain,” He drags him somewhere else, away from their table. “Just don’t tell it to them. Especially Lu Han hyung.”

“What are you up to?”

He rubs his nose, knowing it’s better not to lie in front of Baekhyun. He clears his throat before he goes on to explain. It’s so difficult to speak, the words refuse to come out of his mouth, and his lips are connected like they don’t want to be apart. 

“I wanted to find out what happened– why all of you guys hate Minseok so much.” 

“We told you not to pry. All those things between us and Minseok happened before you.”

“But I’m obviously apart of it now,” He stands firm for what he believes in and it’s one of his good traits. He doesn’t let anyone trample his thoughts, his ideas, because it’s what makes him Sehun. “Especially now that I know I’m his replacement in the team.”

“Fuck,” Baekhyun stares at him in disbelief. “How much did that guy tell you?”

Sehun shrugs nonchalantly, and then looks over to where Minseok is. He’s at the table beside theirs, right hand holding a sandwich and left hand holding something that seems like a music sheet. 

“Just that actually.”

“Stop this thing you’re doing– s-stop talking to him.”

“Only if you tell me the whole story.”

“I wish I knew everything, Sehun. Lu Han didn’t tell us everything.” That’s because he doesn’t know anything at all.

It makes Sehun shake his head in obvious disappointment. He feels the rage boiling in his head, and there’s too much anger in his being. “Then why do you hate him?”

“I obviously had to take sides.”

No, Baekhyun didn’t have to, Sehun thinks.

-

  
“Can we talk?”

“Do you wanna go on a ride with me this weekend, Minseok?”

“To where?”

“To where the road leads us, Minseok.”

-

  
Sehun is spontaneous, that much Minseok has figured out. It has not been too long since they’ve met and here he is, on the passenger seat inside the taller man’s sedan, listening to Ed Sheeran’s Perfect. 

“This song makes me cry every time.”

“What?” Sehun chuckles. Minseok doesn’t look like the type who will cry over an Ed Sheeran song. “Were you imagining yourself running around the house playing with your wife and kids?”

Minseok rejects the idea. “No. I’m gay.”

“Same.” He tells him without a doubt. “Then why?”

“Because it makes me realize how beautiful love is, how I wanted to love and be loved, but love isn’t just for me.”

Sehun frowns, the smaller doesn’t see it though. “Love is for everyone, Minseok.”

Minseok tells him to continue driving, and that he’s tired and he’s going to sleep. He’s hurting physically, emotionally– there’s so much pain that sometimes, he forgets how it feels like to be all right. To be okay, to be just Minseok. To be just a regular guy and do regular stuff. 

  
They arrive at the beach where it’s so quiet and peaceful like all the worries in the world are washed away by the ocean to who knows where. They lay down, their back resting on the sand that feels like a bed, albeit not as soft as what they both imagined. 

“I wanted to bring you here, so you’d be comfortable around me when we talk about you.”

Minseok squirms nearer Sehun, seeking warmth that he misses badly. They’re friends, even though they don’t know much about each other. It’s like a brand new way to look at friendship where there’s no pressure, no hard feelings. 

“It does comfort me.” 

“Are you really ready to tell me everything?” 

Minseok confirms. He’s ready– he has been hiding so much from the world and he thinks it wouldn’t hurt much to let go sometimes, to be free of worry, to let other people share the burden with him. Sometimes, all he need is someone who’s willing to help him carry all the weight on his shoulder.

“I was once passionate about soccer… like you.” He starts off, his voice is kind of shaky due to the nervousness that surges in his body. It’s normal and it’s okay. “But I had to quit even if it was against my will.”

“Why?”

“I’m sick. There were so many tests, so many needles, Sehun. They were in different sizes.”

“Then why is Lu Han angry with you when you obviously had a valid reason? That’s so…”

“I didn’t tell the team, Sehun.”

There are so many whys, so many things Minseok left a mystery. Sehun tries to uncover them one by one, slowly according to the smaller man’s pace.

“I didn’t want them to know. I didn’t want people to know.”

There’s a halt, Minseok turns to his side to look at Sehun who has tears forming in the brim of his eyes, and it makes him angry. 

“Are you pitying me?” He covers Sehun’s eyes with his hand. “Don’t, don’t be. I don’t want people to pity me. I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who’s sick and weak, because I’m so much more than that.”

It’s true, Minseok is so much more than that.

  
-

  
Minseok decides to confront Kyungsoo about his new friend, that he’s going to keep seeing him, to keep hanging out with him, because he’s different than the rest. He treats Minseok like a normal person he is, he treats him the way he wanted people to treat him. 

“Minseok,” Kyungsoo holds onto his hand and smiles at him, it holds so much love and affection, also constant worry, but more happiness. “He makes you smile, and I don’t want you to take it off, so it’s okay. I wouldn’t stop you from spending time with him.”

Kyungsoo has always treated him with care that it reminds him of those hands, hands that handled him with surgical dexterity the night he found out being sick, being terminally ill. There are so many things to process, how many more needles, how much more pain, how purple are his bruises– 

He holds his hand as the sunlight peaks through the cracks of the window, laying down together, back against the comfort of Minseok’s bed. It’s soft and it relaxes him of the thought that someday– someday he’ll have to lie down eternally and never wake up.

“Will you miss me?”

The serious man looks at him, his eyes focusing on Minseok’s unique feature. It’s a lot to take in, that someday– he’s going to have the room for himself, he doesn’t have to share. Someday, he doesn’t have to wake up early to cook breakfast for two. Someday, he’ll have to go to class on his own. It doesn’t have to be like that.

But, here he is, psyching himself for what the future holds.

“I’ll do.” He says, almost like a whisper, a wind that pass by Minseok’s ear. “But you’re alive now, you’re fighting.”

-

“Is it okay?”

“Is it okay to what?”

Minseok looks at the stars shining like Sehun’s orbs, his eyes that hold so many memories. “Okay to hang out with me often.”

“The team doesn’t know.”

“That makes me feel bad.”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them, Minseok.”

It makes Minseok chuckle, how they’re both so young, but the other seems to be wiser, bolder. He transcends strength to him in ways the taller man isn’t aware of and he’s thankful, grateful that he’s able to smile again, to feel again. To feel only happiness and forget about the pain.

“This makes me seem like your secret lover, ‘Hun.”

“Do you want to be my lover, Minseok?”

Sehun asks him as he looks straight in the eye, no pretense, just pure honesty and love and happiness all in one.

“Stop this, s-stop playing with my feelings.”

“I’m serious, ‘Seok.”

Minseok needs time to think– is it really okay to be selfish just this time? To take and receive, to keep and to hold. 

-

  


  
They walk in the hallways hand in hand. Minseok has his eyes on the ground, while Sehun– he’s keeping his head held high. There’s no reason to be ashamed of Minseok, anyway. He’s a fighter, despite what other people say. How could they penalize someone so beautiful, so loving without even knowing what he’s going through? 

Lu Han stomps towards them, Baekhyun and Junmyeon are following behind. More than anything, it’s Lu Han’s words that make Minseok weak every time. He’s just saving everyone from the pain. He’s keeping it all to himself, but why does the world seem so ungrateful towards his own sacrifices? 

“Now, you’re turning sides.” Lu Han says, anger evident on his tone. “Take your pick, Sehun. Either you stay in the team or you stay with that traitor.”

Minseok knows he has to stand up and defend Sehun. He’s a nice guy. When others who don’t know a thing about him decided to crucify him for the rumors they heard, Sehun, on his own accord, went to him, offered him a helping hand, and smiled for going against everyone who’s stopping him. 

“Lu Han hyung– it doesn’t have to be like that.” 

“Then what, Minseok?” The words are full of spite, like there’s no compassion left in him. “You choose for him– do you want him to keep his dream or keep you instead? Would you allow your boyfriend here to…”

Sehun shields Minseok from his captain. They may be younger than them, but they have no right to treat Minseok the way they’re treating him. “Stop this!”

Lu Han just smirks and grabs a hold of Minseok, drags him outside of Sehun’s protective shield. He sees Minseok in pain and snorts, “You– stop pretending to be weak. Stop painting me like I’m the bad guy here.”

Kyungsoo runs towards where the commotion is happening and yells. “Stop! You’re hurting him!” He’s crying seeing Minseok endure all the pain. “S-stop! P-please!” 

“Let go of him, hyung!” Sehun screams. He forcibly separates the two and keeps Minseok in his arms, trying to soothe and calm the trembling guy. 

They keep on fighting– Minseok can’t keep up with the hurtful words they’re throwing in mid-sentences. And seeing the people he loves fight over him is something he can’t bear to see. It’s too tiring, he’s trying to speak up, but they won’t even try to hear them out.

Minseok faints– he doesn’t know what happened next. But everyone unites into bringing him to the school’s own hospital. Minseok would’ve been so glad seeing them worrying for him– not fighting. 

“Why does he need all those?” Lu Han worries over the nurses bringing so many medical apparatus into Minseok’s room. 

“If you had been a little more patient– understanding, Minseok would’ve told you.” Kyungsoo says, the dried tears evident on his face. “If you had been more like Sehun, this wouldn’t have happened.” 

“All Minseok did was try and save all of you from all the pain by keeping all of it to himself, yet you did nothing but add more.” Sehun says, clenching his fists.

“Then tell me so we could all share this pain you’re talking about.” Lu Han is a little bit more rational now. “I want to know how to ease his pain– he’s still, deep down, I still think of him as one of us. I love him so much that I hate thinking he betrayed us.”

“When he wakes up, ask him yourself.”   


  
-

Minseok wakes up the next day. It’s unpleasant– the smell of the hospital, the white walls, but he thinks he can bear this now after seeing Sehun kissing his hand, trying so hard to smile at him. 

“Hey, you’re awake.” 

Minseok smiles at him, thinking so hard what did he do to deserve someone like Sehun. “Can you kiss me?”

He doesn’t answer, but proceeds to kissing him anyway. “Was I good?”

“The best.”

-

It’s emotional, having to reunite with the whole soccer team, but Minseok’s glad that they did. It’s all thanks to Sehun that he understood– that he didn’t have to keep all to himself, that he’s allowed to be selfish sometimes. 

It’s a heartfelt reunion. He forgives them because they essentially are family. They have their downs, but what matters is that they’re okay again. It’s hard to be in terms with what’s happening to their Minseok, but they’re trying their best to be optimistic. After all, the doctor did say something positive the last time they all went together for Minseok’s session.

-

Minseok runs towards the field in his new soccer shoes. Sehun’s behind him smiling, looking at his excited boyfriend. It feels nice that after all the suffering– Minseok’s running around the field, just fine, he’s free from the illness he was suffering years ago. 

After a round of soccer with the guys, Sehun and Minseok both lay on the ground looking at the sky, wondering about all sorts of things– how beautiful the sky is with all the stars decorating it, how time flies so fast and they’re all busy with their own respective jobs but never lost their love for the sport. 

“Can I kiss you, Minseok?”

He doesn’t wait for Minseok’s response and proceeds to kiss him anyway. 

“Was I good?”

Minseok giggles. “You always ask me that after you kiss me.”

“Just answer me.”

“The best.”

  
-

To Minseok, though, Sehun isn’t only the best in kissing. 

-

**Author's Note:**

> i found this fic while cleaning my files and this originally had a different ending, but oh well i love sexiu.
> 
> Thank you!


End file.
